A long weekend of fun at “None of Your Business” Pond

I lay on a warm rock after a swim in the pond. My friend John and I had just finished a hike into Bear Pond and Gooseneck Pond. We arrived back at our campsite with time to spare before dinner so it was time for a swim.

These gaps of time between finishing your hike and dinner at the campsite are my favorite. You can jump in the water and lie on a warm rock to dry off, thinking about dinner and watching the sunset across the water. Just savoring the things ahead of you.

I’d love to tell you where we were, gentle readers. On the xxxx side of xxxx pond in the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness, it’s one of my favorite places to camp. But you and I have had a nice relationship for quite a while. I’d really hate to risk what we have together by arriving at this campsite and, well, finding you camped there.

Good-looking, super-fast and he eats mosquitos. Tiger beetles have it all going on. This one lives at Gooseneck Pond.

I will tell you about Gooseneck Pond, which is a beauty. People camp there as well (hey, maybe that’s where we camped and I’m just not telling you). We bushwhacked in from the trail between Rock Pond and Bear Pond. It’s a short, half mile or so bushwhack.

From the summit of Potter Mountain, I had seen a long rock peninsula sticking out into the pond. I hadn’t realize how long or how high the rock was until we arrived there from the east. It was like a solid wall running into the woods, about six to ten feet high. We had to search for a place to scale it, but it was worth the effort. We stood seemingly out in the middle of the pond with the cliffs on Potter Mountain at the end of the pond.

Near the edge of the pond we heard a strange call, not a bird but something strange. It sounded very close but we couldn’t see anything. Then a young mink popped out from behind a rock maybe 15 feet away.

A really bad mink photo

He eyed us for a second, but before he could react, another mink jumped from behind the rock and tackled him, yelling “I’m going to kick your butt,” (in mink, if my translation is correct.) The first mink said pretty clearly that he wasn’t going to have his butt kicked by mink #2 and that mink#2 may find he’s the one to get his butt kicked.

This enjoyable combination of wrestling and chatter continued for a bit. Before long it seemed mom called them from somewhere near the water. They both took off. A minute later, one of them ran back into the hole like a schoolboy who forgot his books.

Not much later, I was in the water at our campsite. Then warming myself on the rocks, thinking about dinner, then the sunset, then falling asleep to the sounds of bullfrogs and loons. Why don’t I do this more often?